Bill O’Reilly claims NBC’s lack of coverage on drone attacks is their way of protecting Barack Obama

What's a pugnacious political pundit faced with a teflon president to do? Well this week Bill O'Reilly sat down with Fox News' Bob Beckel, the conservative station's so-called token liberal host, to argue that NBC News has not been covering the controversy over President Obama's drones policy in the wake of the Justice Department recent memo obtained by the press.

'Heard anything on NBC about the drones?' O'Reilly asked Beckel Wednesday night. Beckel said he had not. O'Reilly continued, 'You haven't heard anything over there about this, neither have I, neither has my staff.'

According to the Huffington Post O'Reilly claimed that NBC News has not discussed the White House drone policy because the left leaning network is 'protecting the president.'

Apparently neither O'Reilly nor his staff noticed that it was NBC News' Michael Isikoff who obtained the copy of the memo discussing the legality of Obama's drones policy and then broke the story exclusively for the NBC network.

The memo was a major breaking news story for Isikoff and the network, but O'Reilly and his staff somehow failed to notice it has been a major topic of reporting and discussion on both NBC News and MSNBC every night this week.

The story led NBC News' website Monday night and on Tuesday. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow hosted Isikoff on her show Monday night to discuss his headline grabbing scoop in detail. Then NBC's Nightly News also reported on the drones memo on Tuesday night.

Hosts on MSNBC including Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews and the roundtable of The Cycle all devoted major portions of their own shows to the drones memo.

Fox News, O'Reilly's employer, has struggled to retain its credibility after its disastrous election season coverage consistently predicted a Mitt Romney landslide. Earlier this week the station fired Dick Morris, the polling guru who made himself a national laughingstock with his outrageously off the mark predictions.

Morris' departure follows Sarah Palin's and is being seen by some commentators as evidence that the network is increasingly concerned about its trustworthiness.

Meanwhile viewers will have to wonder if O'Reilly and his fair and balanced staff even turned on NBC News or MSNBC this week?